Re: Use of update-alternatives or JAVA_HOME (was: Experience in converting to GCJ)
On Mon, 2003-08-11 at 17:37, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 04:40:11PM -0400, Michael R Head wrote:
>
> Which is something that Unix users have been able to do since the dawn of
> time, in a more generic way, with a different environment variable (namely
> PATH).
I agree 100%. However, this is a feature provided by using JAVA_HOME and
not by alternatives.
>
> I don't follow. To use a package with a particular JDK, you point it to
> that particular JDK. alternatives provide a list of available JDKs, as well
> as a default for the system.
It provides a list of jdks that the system administrator decided to
enter into the alternatives database. This won't (at the very least)
include user installed JDKs.
>
> What do is missing that can't be addressed by alternatives and PATH?
Nothing at all.
I was just trying to provide you with an example or two of how the
alternatives tool _itself_ doesn't solve all the problems (which, I
thought, is what you were asking for in the post I replied to).
But let me point out that I was just playing devil's advocate to support
Jan's point of view. I use alternatives to point to
/usr/local/lib/java/bin/java and set JAVA_HOME to /usr/local/lib/java in
my /etc/environment. This solves all my problems (and my users'
problems, AFAIK) perfectly.
mike
>
> --
> - mdz
--
Michael R Head <burner@suppressingfire.org>
http://suppressingfire.org/~burner/gpg.key.txt
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